


off the deep end

by elospock



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), BAMF Pepper Potts, Bisexual Tony Stark, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fluff and Angst, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark Friendship, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Pre-Slash, Slash, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Steve Feels, Steve Needs a Hug, Tony Feels, Tony Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Hates Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-04-11 20:50:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19117459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elospock/pseuds/elospock
Summary: Tony snaps the gauntlet. Tony is about to die in Pepper's arms, while Steve watches.Except, he is not; not if Doctor Strange can help it.A fix-it to Endgame, canon compliant until Tony's death, some rewrites of the canon and major characters death.





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [my dearest hannah](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=my+dearest+hannah).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo. This happened. I have a pretty clear outline of what's gonna happen, I just need to write it. Which I'm not sure when will happen/how long it will take.
> 
> There will be 22 chapters because I'm a sucker for symbolism.
> 
> Let's fix Endgame, shall we?
> 
> (I have no beta, the mistakes are my own! Will update tags as I go and add TW when appropriate. Also, do I need to say it at this point but--Endgame spoilers?)

chapter 1. prologue 

 

“And I… am… Iron Man.”

Steve heard more than he saw Tony snap the gauntlet. He knocked down his opponent with all the force he could muster, barely wincing as his ribs contracted painfully. He turned towards the deflagration. He felt exhausted, to the very marrow of his bones. Around him, the Black Order started to turn to dust. He saw Thanos look around, frantically, desperately, his gaze falling on Steve, who stared back, not hiding the vicious smugness tugging at his lips, something defiant, sharp and unyielding in his eyes. They had won, and proved that Thanos was not, never had been--and never would be--inevitable. A wave of giddiness overtook him as he looked at a mournful Thanos disintegrate.

They had won.

The relieved smile that had slowly started to form on his tired face froze as he looked over towards where Tony was standing. Or rather, stumbling. With horror, Steve saw that Tony’s right side was almost burnt from the energy burst of the infinity stones.

 _No_ , thought Steve. _Oh god, please no_.

He started running, but he was too far, he was too exhausted, he would never make it in time to catch him. He saw War Machine and Rescue landing right next to where he had tumbled down, quickly followed by Spider-Man.

As he approached--he was still too far, _dammit_ \--he saw Peter kneel besides what was left of Iron Man.

“Mr. Stark? Hey... Mr. Stark? Can you hear me? It's Peter. We won. Mr. Stark.... We won, Mr. Stark. We won and you did it, sir. You did it. I'm sorry…” the boy’s voice hitched in his throat, his eyes full of tears, as he whispered, “Tony…”

Pepper softly pushed the boy aside, putting a hand on the suit. “Hey,” Steve heard her say.

Tony’s voice was barely audible, even for his supersoldier hearing. “Hey, Pep…”

Steve’s heart stopped in his chest at the strain, the pain, the finality behind the words. _No_ , he thought desperately. _He can’t die, no, he can’tdiehecan’tdiehecan’t_ \--

“FRIDAY?” Pepper all but snapped.

“Life functions critical,” replied the AI, something incredibly sad in her automated voice.

Steve was only a few steps away, right behind Pepper and Peter now, but he couldn’t move; it was like someone had poured concrete down his spine.

“Tony. Look at me,” she was saying, her voice surprisingly solid, though Steve could hear the controlled wobbling she was shielding with all her might. “We're gonna be okay. You can rest now.”

He turned his eyes, unfocused and drooping, towards her and she smiled, at the father of her child, at the man she had been in love with for so many years, at the man who was still, after everything that had happened, one of her closest friends; and Steve was crying now, because it was the saddest smile in the world, the most poignant scene he had ever witnessed, the hardest moment of his life.

 _Tony_ , he thought, as the tears spilled, leaving clear tracks on his cheeks, amidst the dust and dried blood. _God, Tony._

Suddenly, Steve was pushed aside by a form half flying half running, orange geometric patterns forming around his hands, enveloping Tony in some kind of net made of light and energy.

“Out of the way. OUT. OF. THE. WAY. Yes, you too, Ms. Potts.”

Pepper stood back quickly, grabbing Spider-Man as she moved. “Strange? What’s going on, what are you doing?”

The tall man arched a dusty eyebrow, but his voice was sharp and urgent. “Saving him.”

The blond woman shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. “It’s too late, FRIDAY… FRIDAY said--”

“Yes, well, FRIDAY is a computer and I’m the Sorcerer Supreme,” Strange snarled, “I control magic, and many of the unseen forces at play in this world, and if I say that Stark is not dying today, _he is not dying today_. I’m putting him under a stasis spell until we can bring him to Wakanda.”

Tony had closed his eyes now, but the arc reactor was still lit--very dimly, and flickering feebly--but lit nonetheless, and almost impossibly bright amidst the dust and destruction surrounding them.

At the mention of Wakanda, Steve’s head snapped up. “Wakanda? But why?”

Strange was still muttering under his breath, doing complex hand gestures, putting more and more threads around Tony, until his form all but disappeared in an orange cocoon.

“Wong!” the magician shouted, as his comrade appeared next to him. “Open a portal. NOW.” Turning around, he looked around the assembled crowd, one hand holding the spell around Iron Man, the other pointing. “Dr. Banner, Your Majesty, Princess Shuri, if you please.”

Bruce grabbed Shuri delicately as he ran towards the portal, followed closely by Black Panther. They crossed the hole and disappeared, Tony’s cocoon following them.

Steve caught Strange’s arm before he could walk through the portal too. “Wait! You can’t just take him away like this.”

“Stand back, Captain Rogers,” he sighed impatiently.

The other man tried breaking free of his grasp, but Steve held on, with a desperation increasing his already incredible strength.

“Not before you tell me what’s going on,” replied the Captain, something almost pleading in his voice. “Please, I--I need,” _I need him_ , he thought, but he couldn’t say that, not now, not here, of all times and places, “I need to know.”

Strange put his hand on top of Steve’s. “There’s nothing you can do for him right now,” he said, softer than he expected, “but with some help from the most advanced technology on earth and my magic, we might stand a chance.”

Dragging the doctor with him, the Captain took a step towards the hole that opened on the beautiful Wakanda valley, where a red sun was setting down. “Then I’m coming with you.”

“Steve,” Pepper’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “You’re needed here. The Avengers--We need a leader right now. Fury doesn’t know what has happened in the past five years. Carol was all around the galaxy, the troops are scattered around. We need you. We need Captain America right now.”

“But--I can’t--I need to--” he stuttered, panic rising in his chest, like a tight coil around his lungs.

Stepping right in front of him, she cupped his face with her gloved hands, brushing a few tears away. “Steve, I’ll go. You know I will call you if anything happens. Doctor Strange can transport you from here to Wakanda in a minute, if you’re needed.”

Steve bit his lip, his gaze going from Pepper to Strange. Reluctantly, Steve nodded and let go of the other man’s arm, who stepped urgently into Wakanda without so much as a backward glance.

He closed his eyes, letting his forehead fall on Rescue’s helmet. “Take care of him, Pepper.”

Letting go of his face, she enveloped him in a tight hug. “I will. Until you can.”

He needed to tell her. He needed her to know. Someone had to know. “Pepper--” he started, but the words died in his throat. They were too painful, too sharp, too new to be spoken aloud, not when--not when Tony was on the brink of death.

Gently, the blond woman pushed him away. “There’s no time, Steve,” she interrupted him. “And before you say anything, yes, I know. I _know_ , Steve.”

Steve gaped at her. “You know? What--How--Did Tony--”

She shook her head, a small mirthless smile flickering on her lips. “I’ve known for much longer than both of you have. Now go,” she insisted, pointing towards the rest of the Avengers and other superheroes gathered around them. “Go do what you are good at, and I’ll go do what I’m good at.”

Steve frowned. “Which is?”

She arched an unimpressed eyebrow. “You, in charge of the mess Tony left,” she gestured vaguely towards what was left of the compound. “Me, slapping Tony for almost dying on us again.”

“Pepper--” he protested.

She started walking through the portal that Wong was still patiently holding. “Yes, _I’ll call you_.”

He took a step forwards, the words spilling from his lips before he could stop them. “Tell him that I lo--”

She stopped and turned back slowly, her eyes narrowing. “Oh no, no, no, no, no, Captain. You will tell him yourself,” she hammered, marching angrily towards Steve. She hit him square in the chest with a gloved finger, as though wanting to pound every word she said in his body. “Because if Stephen Strange, King T’Challa, Bruce and Shuri have decided that Anthony Edward Stark is not dying today, then he will not. So you can save your grand confession for when he is awake and can say it back. Because he _will_ say it back. Am I making myself clear?”

Of course, he had witnessed Tony and Pepper’s interactions over the years, their easy banter, their constant bickering and speaking over each other, their offhanded but not-so-casual fight for dominance over one another, their unexpectedly balanced stubbornness, her ruthlessness as CEO of StarkIndustries; but he had never been on the receiving end of her wrath. He understood much better now how and why she was still in Tony’s life after all these years. Why she was the mother of his child. She certainly was a sight to behold and a force to reckon with; only a fool would underestimate her and make an enemy out of her. And Tony might be reckless, annoyingly arrogant, snarky, and have zero self-preservation instincts, but he definitely was not a fool.

Too stunned to say anything, he gave her a two-finger salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

She nodded sharply, but her eyes were soft. “Good. Now go and assemble your team.”

And she activated the helmet and flew away, disappearing fast in the red glow of the setting sun as the portal collapsed after her.


	2. crash through the surface

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys. Guys. This is already getting out of hand. This is going to be a long fic. It seems I can’t write short stories, I’m always going for novel length (well, I did say there would be 22 chapters, and here I was, a fool, thinking these would be short like that first one. A FOOL. A fool, I tell you).
> 
> Also, I decided to include a lot of Endgame dialogues, because 1) even if it broke my heart, I loved Endgame, and 2) I love to use the canon to further my own slashy agenda. Like, a lot. And well, I like to challenge myself too, and I really want to stick to the canon until Tony’s death. I’m just gonna expand it a little while I’m at it, that’s all. And by a little I mean, what-do-you-mean-this-scene-is-longer-than the-whole-movie kinda expansion. :)
> 
> Like, you know, there’s only so much a movie can show, how about all these missing scenes between Cap and Tony… How about this five year gap, I refuse to believe Steve and Tony didn’t see each other for five years.
> 
> So yep. Get in it for the long haul, you people. But also, I’m very much in a frantic and very motivated writing mood these days. And my outline is getting more precise everytime I come back to this fic.
> 
> Gonna write the years at the beginning from now on, because this will not be a completely linear fic.

 

chapter 2. crash through the surface

 

2018.

 

Tony was tired.

In fact, he couldn’t remember a time where he’d been this tired. Not even in that fucking cave in Afghanistan. Not even when he was walking alone in the desert, with no water, no food, nothing. Not even after New York, and the nuclear warhead, and falling, falling, impossibly fast, too fast, from too high. Not even after the panic attacks. Coulson’s death. EXTREMIS. Ultron.

Not even after Siberia.

He closed his eyes for a second. He needed to do this; and yet he’d never felt less like doing something in his life. There was something so final about it. Like giving up. And Tony Stark didn’t give up.

And yet, here he was.

He sighed as he slumped down the wall of the Benatar, reaching forward to turn on the helmet, the last thing he had salvaged from the suit.

Tony had thought for a long time about recording The Message (which, yes, he capitalized even in his mind). Tony Stark’s Last Message. God, that sounded overly dramatic. He snorted. Yeah, he’d always had a flare for the dramatic, hadn’t he?

He had thought for a long time about The Message, and whom to address it to.

His first thought had been for Steve, of course. But to be fair, his first thought was almost always for Steve, so it didn’t really count.

At this point, he wasn’t sure if he ever stopped thinking about Steve. About everything they didn’t say to each other. About all the things he wanted to scream to his face. About all the pain he had felt. The betrayal. The loneliness. The heartbreak. The fucking heartbreak. The worst heartbreak of his life. Worst than when he’d realised that he would never live up to his father’s expectations, no matter how hard he tried, and how brilliant his inventions were.

And all Steve fucking Rogers had done, after leaving him, alone, cold, the suit broken beyond repair, after leaving with the man who had killed Tony’s parents; all Steve Rogers had done was send the most frustrating, self-righteous letter, barely apologising, reminding Tony acutely of what he had lost. A letter, along with a cellphone. A flip phone. An actual flip phone. _A fucking flip phone_. Adding insult to injury.

 _Yeah, fuck you too, Cap_ , he thought viciously.

God, Tony was still angry at him. So fucking angry. And yet, as he considered his decreasing odds at survival, he had so many regrets. So much sorrow. So much pain. And if he was honest with himself—which he very rarely was, but hey, being on the brink of death had a way of making you reconsider your life and defense mechanisms—he missed the guy. Fuck, he missed him so fucking much.

For almost two years, radio silence had felt like the perfect revenge. Leaving Steve in the dark. Never using the phone. Never replying to messages. Never acknowledging anything. Never mentioning his name in press conferences. Ignoring questions about him entirely. Very visibly rolling his eyes on camera every time a journalist asked. God, it had felt like a little victory. Like having the last word of an argument.

But that was all appearances, because of course, Tony had kept a close eye on the renegade Avengers’ activities. Hell, he even had live footage of what they were up to. They thought they were so clever and untraceable. Like he hadn’t guessed they had ran to Wakanda the minute Steve broke them free from the raft. Fools.

So as he spent weeks, months, years ghosting Steve and giving him the cold shoulder, he watched him in all the security footage he could get his hands on—which was like, _a lot —_every day. Every night.

Even on his honeymoon with Pepper. That was how bad he had it. FRIDAY had alerted him of something that had Steve written all over, and he had gone and hid in the bathroom to watch the bad quality images of Cap fighting the good fight, even after all this time on the run.

He was still wearing the fucking uniform Tony had made him. He had dyed it, sure, and it was battered and worn out—but it was still the same suit.

Tony didn’t know how to feel about that. Or rather, he knew how he felt about that, but it was too dangerous to name the feelings. So he just did what he always did; he ignored them.

So yeah, he wasn’t sure that The Message should be addressed to Steve. There was too much he still needed to say, and a fucking recording from the other side of the universe wouldn’t cut it. He would just waste his last opportunity at leaving something, no matter how pointless, on resentment, anger, regrets. He’d already wasted enough time on Bad Feelings to last a lifetime. And he was done wasting energy on Steven Grant Rogers, the man who somehow always knew how to get under his skin, the man he had thought had been a friend, the man he had fallen in—

No. _No_. Oh no, no, no, no, no. This hadn’t been love. This had been something overpowering, intoxicating, toxic, something that had left him hollow and alone. Something that had reminded him of his father, of his inadequacy, of his failures.

Nope. Oh, hell no. He wouldn’t record The Message for Steve. There was just too much there, and he didn’t have enough time, enough energy left to tell him everything he felt, all his contradictions; like the fact that he missed the guy so much it was like someone had cut off a limb he didn’t know he had, and that he also wanted to punch him in the face. Hard. Many times.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope.

He gave the helmet a tentative tap. “This thing on?”

A blue light scanned his face and body, and he sighed in relief.

“Hey, Miss Potts... Pep.”

Tony closed his eyes, and let his head hit the wall behind him. “If you find this recording, don't post it on social media. It's gonna be a real tear-jerker. I don't know if you're ever going to see these. I don't even know if you're... if you're still…” his voice stuck in his throat. What if she—what if the same thing had happened to her than to Peter and Strange and all the others? “Oh god, I hope so.”

He inhaled shakily. He could feel in his lungs the heaviness of the air he was breathing. He let it sit there like a stone, a reminder that he was dying, but also that he was still alive. _Get a fucking grip, Stark_.

“Today is day 21,” he thought for a second, “uh, no, 22. You know, if it wasn't for the existential terror of staring into a void of space, I'd say I'm feeling better today. The infection's run its course, thanks to the blue meanie back there.”

He had a little smile as he thought of Nebula, their little games, her brusqueness, her eagerness to live, to survive. “You'd love her. Very practical. Only a tiny bit sadistic. Some fuel cells were cracked during battle, but we figured out a way to reverse the ion charge to buy ourselves about 48 hours of time.”

If only they had had more to work with. God, what he would have given for another suit, or Jarvis, or even Dummy. “But it's now dead in the water. We're 1000 light years from the nearest 7 / 11. Oxygen will run out tomorrow. And that'll be it. And Pep, I …”

He closed his eyes again, fighting back tears. He spent so much time thinking of Steve, of the Avengers, of how they had betrayed him on a deep level; and he always spent so little time considering how _he_ betrayed Pepper on an almost daily basis. It was a miracle she still put up with him, after almost twenty years. Enough to marry him. God, he was an idiot.

“I know I said no more surprises, but I was really hoping to pull off one last one. But it looks like... well you know what it looks like. Don't feel bad about this. I mean, if you grovel for a couple of weeks… and then move on with enormous guilt.”

He sighed, glancing at the unmoving emptiness of the universe. “I should probably lie down. Please know that... when I drift off, I will think about you. It's always you.”

He wished he believed the words in his heart as much as he meant them. Because it was true; Pepper was the only constant he had had in his life ever since his parents had died. She was family, she was the only family he had left.

It really was her. Always her.

Except for Cap. Steve. Fucking Steven Rogers. Who had always— _always —_been part of his life. First as his own personal hero. His dad’s friend. The man he aspired to be and live up to become. When he got older, he still kept the idea of Captain America close to his heart, as a reminder of the ideals he wanted to uphold, as a memory of better days, of the few good years he had had as a child, as something fragile and pure, a secret cache in his heart, a talisman against the bullies and the people who dismissed and underestimated him.

And of course, then he had actually met him. Never meet your heroes, they say, because they’re sure to disappoint you. Well, if that wasn’t the truth.

Except that Cap had lived up to his reputation. Sure, they had started on the wrong foot, and Tony had been less than impressed by the self-righteous and dismissive bitterness of the guy.

But then. After that. It had been like the imaginary friend Tony had had since childhood had suddenly become alive. Steve had been everything Tony had waited for. Everything he had ever wanted in a friend. Someone who loved hanging out with him, but challenged him at every turn. Someone who was his exact opposite, and yet so similar. Someone with snark and a dry, wry humour, but also a ferocious need to protect the people he loved that matched Tony’s. Someone with whom he could banter, but also have the difficult conversations.

Steve had been all of that—and more.

Until the Accords. Until Barnes.

God, did Steve disappoint him then.

It had been ironic, hadn’t it? The fucking Accords debacle. How the tables had turned, for Captain America— _fucking_ Captain America—to take the exact same stance he, Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, had taken for so many years. The famous ‘Yeah, no, fuck you, the suit is mine, and you can’t control me’.

How fucking ironic for Cap to give him the deformed mirror image of himself as an arrogant, self-righteous, stubborn asshole who didn’t give two fucks about governments and rules?

How ironic that he, Iron Man, had felt guilty enough to be bullied into signing them? Well, that was what you got for playing God, he guessed.

How ironic that he had had to fight Steve over accountability? Steve, the fucking poster child for justice and defending what was right? Captain America, the one who had fought Nazis and supervillains to protect the world? By _him_ , Tony Stark, the former weapon manufacturer, who had preferred to create a suit of armour around the world and pretend to privatise world peace than be held accountable?

And he only had himself to blame, hadn’t he? He was the first one who planted the seed of doubt in Steve’s mind, all those years ago, when he had hacked into SHIELD to figure out what they were truly doing with the Tesseract. It felt like it happened one or two lifetimes ago.

Tony closed his eyes. There was still so much pain and anger in all of this, but also a deep-seated sadness. Because right now, he’d rather go back to their “Civil War” a thousand times than cope with the destruction Thanos had left and his resulting, impending doom.

He turned off the helmet, rubbing his thumb over the left eye, sorrow threatening to overtake everything. Slowly, he lowered his upper body to the ground, trying to find the least uncomfortable position, draping his jacket over his shoulder. He felt the tears fall down his face, and he couldn’t find it in himself to fight them.

Fuck. He didn’t want to die.

He wanted to see Pepper. He wanted to kiss her face and hold her close, and have her yell at him for being an asshole with no self-preservation instinct, and comfort him.

He wanted to call Steve and yell at him for a while, and hug him, and like, possibly kiss his face too, because _fuck this_. Fuck the drama and the bitterness.

He wanted to see Rhodey, and have him glare at him, call him an idiot, and shout for being an arrogant, reckless bastard.

He wanted to see Bruce, and poke him with a pen, and make innuendo about performance and the other guy. He wanted to see Nat, and Hawkeye, and even Fury, and Hill. Fuck, he wanted to see all of them. Even if he was pissed at most of them. They were his family. His only family.

So he cried. And cried. Because that was all he had left. He cried, mourning the people he loved, mourning the fact he would never get to say goodbye. He cried, until he didn’t have any tears left, until exhaustion finally overcame him.

And slowly, softly, sleep claimed him, for what Tony knew would be the last time.

*

A light. There was a light. Really, a light? There actually was a light when you died? _Jesus_ , thought Tony. How disappointingly predictable.

The light was growing, adding some pressure on his eyelids that felt deceivingly real and tangible. He opened his eyes tentatively.

So. He wasn’t dead? Or was he?

He put a hand in front of his eyes to shield the impossible brightness, turning around to get his bearings. Huh. He was sitting upright, in one of the seats. He frowned; he didn’t remember falling asleep there, but then his head was in a very dense fog, and unbelievable heavy, like someone had filled it with lead. So maybe that was why.

He inhaled shakily, feeling the decreasing percentage of oxygen with each breath. But still—he was still breathing, so that must mean he wasn’t dead, right?

He turned back towards the cockpit window, where the light was still getting brighter.

There was a shape. Yep, definitely a shape. A shape with hair, flying with a glowing aura.

Yeahhhh. Yep. Okay. Definitely dead then, thought Tony. He tried to snort, but ended up coughing and wheezing, his lungs straining under the pressure of the carbon dioxide in the air. He winced and closed his eyes. Fuck, he thought pain was supposed to go away, once you die.

Or maybe he was in hell. He probably was in hell, actually. Oh, well. He kinda deserved it.

He opened his eyes tiredly again and flinched. Because the shape—well, it wasn’t a shape anymore, it was humanoid.

And wearing a costume. Like an actual, superhero costume. And now, it was waving at him. And smiling.

“Who the fuck are you,” Tony tried to say, but choked on the words, and they only came out as a whisper.

She—because at this point, it was pointless to refer to the shape as ‘it’—shook her head, and pointed at her chest, her lips moving quickly, like she was trying to reply to his question.

“Can’t hear you, there’s no air in space, and thus, no possibility for sound, basic physics, really,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and weak. “Plus, you know, there’s a window designed to resist space travel between us, doubt I could hear you even if you shouted. Even if you could shout, because again, space, no air, no sound, nada.”

She rolled her eyes, and disappeared, taking the light with her. A second later, Tony felt the ship move under his feet, and anxiously looked around. Nebula came to where he was sitting, a question in her eyes. Tony shrugged; none of this made any sense.

The ship picked up speed, until it was going faster than its engines could have ever flown, the stars blurring in the great expanse of space before them. He felt Nebula’s hand on his shoulder and put his own on top of it.

He tried calculating the relative speed they were going at and how much longer it would take for them to get to Earth, but the scarcity of the air made it hard for him to focus. He estimated that they had roughly an hour of flight to reach their destination, but that was more an educated guess than anything remotely scientific.

He held on to Nebula’s hand, like a drowning man. They were obviously being rescued, there was still hope. Maybe he would be able to pull one last surprise after all.

Hopefully they wouldn’t run out of oxygen a few minutes away from home. That would be the epitome of irony.

And if there was one thing Tony couldn’t stand, it was an ironic death.

So he took a shallow breath, and closed his eyes—and hoped.

*

“Stark, we are almost there. Wake up.”

Opening his eyes was the hardest thing in the world. Everything seemed to be out of focus, like looking through someone else’s glasses.

But he did recognise the Avengers compound, no matter how blurry and vague its shape was.

He tried pushing himself up, but he was so weak that all he succeeded in doing was making himself cough. He felt Nebula’s arms around his torso, propping him against her shoulder, dragging him away from the cockpit.

They landed with a soft thud, the hull shaking and throwing Tony off balance, but Nebula held on and walked towards the hatch. She punched in the emergency open sequence as fast as she could, the door opening with a sharp hiss.

Fresh air flooded the spaceship, and relief washed over Tony’s whole body as his lungs happily fed on the renewed oxygen.

Breathing was nice, oh yeah, he would never underestimate breathing ever again. Never.

Nebula pushed him forward, one of her hands around his waist, the other holding his other arm around her shoulders.

Shapes—people—were running towards him in the yard.

And suddenly, strong arms were enveloping him, holding him close, anchoring him. He looked up at Steve’s face, taking in the lines that hadn’t been there two years ago, the worry deep in his blue eyes, the relief on his features to see Tony, alive.

Fuck. _Fuck_. Thank god. Steve was still alive, still there. Tony hadn’t realised until now how deeply he had feared that the man was dead. He gripped his arm like it was the only thing real in the world, the only thing preventing him from disappearing and fading away like the others.

“I couldn't stop him,” was all Tony could whisper, his voice hoarse and strangled by the tears that threatened to spill.

“Neither could I,” Steve replied, his voice just as soft and broken.

And god, it felt good to hear his voice.

He looked up, another wave of sorrow overtaking him. “I lost the kid.”

And he knew Steve would understand. They hadn’t spoken a lot since Leipzig, but Steve knew enough about Peter and how he felt like a son to Tony to understand why it mattered. Why it broke Tony that hat he was gone.

Steve shook his head, his shoulders slumping. “Tony, we lost.”

His heart sank; fuck, he had never seen Cap looking so utterly dejected and beaten. It must have been one hell of a battle here. One hell of a defeat.

Other figures had started gathering around them, but Tony didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see who was missing and who was still there, didn’t want to count heads and figure out just how many—how much—they had lost.

But he had to ask. He had to ask about Pepper. “Is ummm…” but the words died in his throat; it was too painful, it was too hard, oh god, what if she had disappeared too?

As though reading Tony’s train of thoughts, a small figure pushed Steve away and threw her arms around him, tears streaming down her face.

“Oh my God!” Pepper said, as she sobbed into his shoulder, holding him so tight he could barely breathe.

But he didn’t care. He wrapped his arms around her thin body, and closed his eyes, letting the tears he had fought to keep at bay fall in her hair.

Pepper was alive. She was alive. And so was Steve.

“It's okay,” he whispered, and he almost believed it.

Almost.

*

Tony had a headache. He was waiting for the meeting to start, but to be honest, he didn’t really care anymore.

He had been back for one day— _one day —_spent mostly in the med bay, and he already had to deal with this shit.

Fuck he needed coffee. Or maybe a whole bottle scotch. Or both at the same time. Yeah. Both at the same time sounded about right.

“It's been 23 days since Thanos came to Earth,” Nat said, startling him out of his thoughts. He still wasn’t used to her platinum blond hair, it looked so unnatural on her. “World governments are in pieces. The parts that are still working are trying to take a census. And it looks like he did... exactly what he said he was going to do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent, of all living creatures.”

Pictures of all the fallen Avengers and superheroes danced around the holographic screen. Tony looked at each of them, feeling the bitterness and sadness gnaw at his insides like acid. He let his glasses slump a bit over his nose, until his eyes caught the innocent face of Peter.

And suddenly, he couldn’t see anything else.

Gritting his teeth, he pushed his glasses back up. Short of having the armor to hide behind, the glasses would have to do. “Where is he now? Where?” he asked, trying to keep his anger in check, at least for now. It was a losing battle.

Steve sighed, shaking his head wearily. “We don't know. He just opened a portal and walked through.”

Tony rubbed his forehead, his gaze falling on Thor, who was sitting alone on the other side of the room, deep in thought and something hard, wrathful, unyielding etched on his face. His hair was short now, and there was something wrong with one of his eyes. Tony wondered what happened to him. Gone were the easy smiles, the confident demeanour, the boisterousness. Given the circumstances, it made sense, but there was something more to it; something deeper.

“What's wrong with him?” he asked, waving a hand towards the god.

“Yeah, he's pissed,” interjected the raccoon. Tony turned his gaze towards it—him? And seriously, _who the fuck_ was that? “He thinks he failed,” he continued. “Which of course he did, but there's a lot of that's goin' around, ain't there?”

Tony blinked. “Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear.”

Yep. Tony Stark, ladies and gentlemen, hiding behind snark, humour and sarcasm since 1970.

The raccoon—was his name Racket? Rocket?—just shrugged, replying with a derisive tone. “Maybe I am.”

Ignoring the exchange with a pointed glare, Steve marched on. “We've been hunting Thanos for three weeks now. Deep space scans, satellites, and we got nothing,” he admitted, his head falling. His gaze flicked towards Tony, holding his gaze for a second. “Tony, you fought him.”

Tony huffed. “Who told you that? I didn't fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker Street Magician gave away the stone. That's what happened. There was no fight,” he snapped.

“Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?” the blond man insisted, his tone reverting automatically to his Captain America, commanding voice.

God, Tony both missed and hated that tone. Right now the latter more than the former.

He waved a dismissive hand, letting sarcasm drip from his every word. “Pfft! I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming.”

Steve sighed impatiently. “Tony, I'm gonna need you to focus.”

Oh, and that was the last straw.

“And I needed you,” Tony snarled. “As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It's too late buddy. Sorry. You know what I need?” he stood up, pushing things away from the table, ripping his IV off violently, feeling a vicious pleasure when the others visibly flinched at the noise and gesture. “I need to shave.”

He moved towards Steve, who was looking at him with a guarded expression. “And I believe I remember telling you, Cap.”

“Tony, Tony,” said Rhodey, trying to put himself between them. “Tony, stop!”

Tony pushed his friend away, with a warning glare. “Otherwise, what we needed was a suit of armor around the world! Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedom or not—that's what we needed!” he shouted in Steve’s face.

“Well, that didn't work out, did it?” the Captain replied, his tone cold and cutting.

Tony snorted. “I said, ‘We'll lose’. You said, ‘We'll do that together too.’ And guess what, Cap?” he lashed out, his anger bubbling dangerously under his skin. “We _lost_ . You weren't there. But that's what we do, right? Our best work after the fact? We're the Avengers, we're the _A-_ vengers. Not the _Pre-_ vengers, right?” he sneered.

Rhodey sighed heavily, trying to drag him back towards the wheelchair. “Okay, you made your point. Just sit down, ok?”

“Nah, nah, nah,” he shook himself from his grasp, his eyes narrowing, latching at Steve’s unmoving gaze. “Here's my point.”

“Sit down!” shouted the colonel angrily, but Tony ignored him.

He pointed at Carol. “She's great, by the way. We need you,” he said, with a nod, addressing her. “You're new blood.”

“Tony!” growled Rhodey.

“Bunch of tired old mills!” he went on, gesturing around the room derisively.

He let his eyes wander around for a second, trying to get his anger under control—and then gave up. He was tired, so fucking tired of pretending everything was alright.

He turned back towards Steve, his tone biting and sharp like a knife. “I got nothing for you, Cap. I got no coordinates, no clues, no plan, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. Liar,” he spat the last word, his eyes boring into Steve’s, letting all the resentment and bitterness and pain that had built up for the past two years fill the space between them.

He saw Steve flinch physically, like he had just punched him in the gut. Tony could almost feel the shame, the regret, the pain radiate from the other man’s body, and suddenly, he couldn’t handle any of it. He had wanted to have this discussion, to shout at Steve for so long, to have him acknowledge his faults and apologise for them, to have him drop in front of him and beg for forgiveness; and now that it was on the verge of happening, now that he was in front of Cap, of the man who had robbed him of so much, he couldn’t face it. He couldn’t deal. He needed to hurt him. He needed to hurt him like he had when the shield had almost ripped him in half. Like he had when Steve had gone with Barnes, and left him behind.

So because he was Tony Stark and a sucker for reckless and dramatic gestures, he ripped off the arc reactor from his chest and shoved it in Steve’s hand.

“Here,” he hissed, “take this. You find him, and you put that on. You hide.”

And obviously, that was when his legs gave way under him. He fell to the ground, his wiry, malnourished frame too weak to fight, too exhausted to expand so much energy towards reopening old wounds.

And obviously, Steve was there, kneeling on the ground by his side in an instant, his arms solid around Tony’s body, while the others gathered around quickly and towered over them.

“Tony!” barked Rhodey, because of course, Rhodey was worried, and pissed, and he would probably make Tony pay for it dearly later.

He inhaled raggedly, waving a hand around in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. “I'm fine. I…”

The last thing he saw before passing out were Steve’s anxious eyes, impossibly blue, mirroring the faint glow of the arc reactor he was still holding in his hand.


	3. in the shallow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: a lot has been happening in my life, especially over the past few days, a lot of sadness and pain. At least this story helps me to distract myself, but it's one reason why it's taken me so long to update this. Life, work and family stuff have been pretty harsh with me.
> 
> Soooo I'm not perfectly satisfied with this chapter. But it's been sitting in my drive for so long, that I just, I need to get it out there, instead of writing further chapters of this story and wait until this one is absolutely perfect. I might rewrite parts of it, but if I do, I'll write it in the further chapters' notes.
> 
> Incidently, I have already written a lot of the upcoming chapters, but i'm a perfectionist. It might be a little while before more comes out.
> 
> I don't have a beta or anyone reading this before I publish. So if you feel that some verb tenses are off, it's all on me. I tried to write like a memory in a memory, while writing this story in the past tense already, and boy, it was hard. English is not my first language, and though I've spoken and written English for a long time, a lot of these things don't come perfectly intuitively to me, and that whole scene felt stiff verb tense wise. If you have any tips or want to help me make it better—PLEASE reach out! :) As I said, I'm a perfectionist, and I would 100% welcome anyone's input on grammar and stuff.
> 
> Let me know what you think!

chapter 3. in the shallow

 

2018.

 

Steve started pacing slowly around the room overlooking the one where Tony was currently sleeping. Pepper was sitting at his bedside, her eyes unfocused and unseeing, as a nurse checked Tony’s vitals. Colonel Rhodes was standing near the window, looking at his friend wistfully, something sad in his usually steely eyes. Bruce was also looking at Tony, scratching the back of his neck, something nervous and worried in the downward curve of his mouth.

The Captain closed his eyes, bracing for the necessary conversation that was coming. They needed a plan. They needed to figure out what their next move was. And Steve had no idea what to do, what to propose, what to organise. It was driving him up the wall; he hated inaction. He hated that moment between battles, when you didn’t know where your enemy was, when all there was to do was wait until something happened.

He looked over at Nat, at her hunched head, at her empty gaze. He had come to rely on her a lot; she didn’t challenge him like Tony, but she was blunt and ruthlessly efficient. She called Steve out when she thought he was making a mistake, but fell in line and listened to his orders when he was in charge of a mission. She had nicknamed herself his ‘henchwoman’, and they formed a good, solid team. They trusted each other implicitly.

But deep down, he knew they were both looking for someone else in each other; him, Tony, and her, Barton. She never talked about it, and neither did he. It was a silent pact, an unspoken agreement; they both knew only too well that moving on was the only way forward, as much as a question of survival.

Nebula and Rocket were leaning on a wall in a dark corner, speaking softly. At first, it had been weird to interact with Rocket, and hear him talk about his own teammates. Steve’s heart sank as he thought about how they were the only two left standing of their own little world. He tried to imagine losing all of the people in the room on top of all the ones they had lost already. It was unbearable.

His heart squeezed painfully as he remembered the way Bucky and Sam’s bodies had dissolved into dust. God, he missed them. He missed Sam, his easy friendship and optimistic candor. During their exile, he helped Steve more than once from slipping into a darkness he didn’t know how to fight by himself. Sam was a steady, comforting presence by his side. His absence stood out like a sore thumb.

And Bucky. God, Bucky. After all he had done to protect him. After all he had sacrificed. After knowingly letting him go once again, when he had decided to go back under cryogenic sleep. After getting him back, so briefly. Watching him vanish just a few weeks ago had hurt as much, if not more, than when Bucky had fallen from that blasted train, all these years—no, decades—ago. He would never get used to losing him. No matter how often it happened.

The past twenty-two days had been hard, in every possible way; having to navigate constantly between action, restlessness, grief, anger, strategizing. Being in charge, and yet, powerless. There was just so much to do, from censuses to organising repairs and rebuilding, helping governments to reform, aiding citizens to move on.

And Tony’s absence, the lack of news, the fact that no one knew where he had been going, that he could be stranded somewhere with Peter Parker and Stephen Strange, that he might have very well turned to dust with half of the universe—it had taken Steve all of his willpower, all of his strength to keep going. The others needed him to be strong, to be in charge, and so he marched on. 

Pepper had found him on the roof of the compound, one moonless night. That was his hideout, his secret spot where he could retreat from the world and finally drop his shields, real and metaphorical. Where he could be just Steven Rogers, from Brooklyn, who had lost so many people he cared for deeply. Where he didn’t need to be in charge and have a steady head. Where he could look at the stars and pray that Tony was still alive and well, flying among them.

Pepper had sat there next to him, in silence. After a while, she had reached for his hand and laced her fingers with his, as she let her head fall on his shoulder. She looked so tiny and fragile, in that moment, and it had made Steve’s heart ache so much he thought it was going to explode. 

With her other hand, she had delicately brushed away the tears he hadn’t realised were falling, her movements slow, comforting, soothing. He had cradled her head with his hand, letting his fingers tangle in her soft hair, holding her close as he felt the fabric of his shirt dampen where her cheek was pressed.

Steve didn’t know how long they had stayed like that, holding on to each other like drowning people to a lifeline, but when Pepper had finally moved, the sky was grey with the beginning of a new dawn. She had looked at him, a sad smile on her lips, and made to leave, but Steve had caught her wrist, and pulled her back in a tight hug. “I know,” she had said simply, and he didn’t ask, because he knew what she meant. When he finally let her go, he kissed her cheek, and whispered softly, “Thank you, Pepper.”

After that, every night he went up to the roof, she always joined him. Somehow, the sorrow was more bearable when she was there.

Rhodes’s voice shook him out of his thoughts. “Bruce gave him a sedative,” he sighed, glancing at Steve. “He's gonna be out for the rest of the day.”

Carol glanced around the room. “You guys take care of him. And I'll bring Xorrian Elixir when I come back,” she stated simply, walking decidedly towards the door. 

Steve turned towards her, frowning. “Where are you going?”

The blond woman shrugged, as though it was explicit. “To kill Thanos.”

Nat huffed impatiently. “Hey, you know, we usually work as a team around here, and between you and I, we're also a little fragile.”

Steve glanced towards his friend. He saw her body tense minutely, and he was sure no one but him noticed. They had spent so much time together, Steve had learned to decipher her subtle mood changes and emotions. For the rest of them, she remained imperturbable, letting only annoyance filter through her tone. But he could feel that there was something else there, some kind of desperation, of deep anger and hurt. And he understood—he felt the same.

He nodded at Carol. “We realise out there is more of your territory, but this is our fight too.”

Rhodey shook his head, his eyes fixed on her. “Do you even know where he is?

She paused, hesitating only a second before replying. “I know people who might.”

“Don't bother,” said Nebula, coming from behind her. “I can tell you where Thanos is.” 

The blue alien walked past the group, towards the table. “Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect me. Then, when he worked, he talked about his great plan. Even disassembled, I wanted to please him,” she continued darkly, her eyes hard and cold as she looked unseeingly around the room. “I'd ask where would we go once his plan was complete. His answer was always the same: To the Garden.”

Rhodey snorted. “That's cute, Thanos has a retirement plan.”

Steve had to fight the urge to roll his eyes at the Colonel. He knew the man used humour as a defense mechanism, and that right now, the man’s best friend was in a medically induced sleep; that he had lost just as much as all of them after the snap. But for god’s sake, he was infuriatingly arrogant and sarcastic sometimes, in a way that definitely was reminiscent of Tony, and yet, grating in a different way (which Steve didn’t want to examine too closely). 

And god knew that Tony could crawl under Steve’s skin like no other.

The Captain looked back towards Nebula. “So where is he then?”

Rocket moved towards the holographic table. “When Thanos snapped his fingers, Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions. No one's ever seen anything like it... Until two days ago,” he pointed, as a hologram of a planet appeared, a shockwave visibly shaking the surface. “On this planet.”

Nebula nodded. “Thanos is there.”

“He used the stones again,” Nat deduced, looking piercingly at everyone around the room, her eyes pausing on Steve.

Bruce held up his hands, looking in disbelief around him. “Hey. Hey,” he snapped, but there was an underlayer of panic in his tone. “We'd be going in short-handed, you know.”

Rhodey tilted his head in ascent. “Look, he's still got the stones, so…”

Carol shrugged again. “So let's get him... We'll use them to bring everyone back.”

The colonel sneered, arching an eyebrow. “Just like that?”

“Yeah, just like that,” Steve agreed.

Steve looked over at Carol, at the resolve on her face mirroring his own. He knew they would both fight until they die to bring the others back. The pilot-turned-superhero held his gaze, measuring. She must have seen the same that he had found, because she nodded in approval, a small smile gracing her lips.

Nat was nodding too. “Even if there's a small chance that we can undo this... I mean, we owe it to everyone who's not in this room to try.”

Bruce rubbed a hand over his tired face. “If we do this, how do we know it's gonna end any differently than it did before?”

“Because before, you didn't have me,” Carol stated simply.

She said it in such a matter-of-fact way, yet with a self-confidence bordering on arrogance—and Steve couldn’t help but be brought back to the first time he had met Tony, with his cocky offhandedness and the brash certainty he’d had of his own capacities and intelligence. His breath caught in his throat; so much had happened since that day. Grating his teeth, he breathed deeply, fighting with all his might the overwhelming wave of regret and pain that threatened to overtake him.

“Hey, new girl,” Rhodey interjected, with something hard and harsh in his voice that Steve had never heard before, “everyone here is about that superhero life. And if you don't mind me asking, where the hell have you been all this time?”

She crossed her arms defiantly, looking him up and down. “There are a lot of other planets in the universe. And unfortunately, they didn't have you guys.”

Thor suddenly got up from where he had been sitting quietly and eating, startling everyone. He walked over to Carol and held his hand up. A low buzz filled the air, as the shockwave of Stormbreaker flying through the room to answer the God of Thunder’s call made everything vibrate. The hammer missed the blond by inches, but she didn’t even so much as bat an eyelash, as she smiled at the Asgardian.

Thor looked at her appraisingly and nodded. “I like this one.”

Looking over at his friends and comrades in arms, Steve felt pride and determination swell in his chest, mixing with something far more primal and visceral fast simmering in his gut, pooling like acid in his veins. He felt his fists clench in a vice grip, letting the full power and strength of the serum flow down to the tip of his fingers.

“Let's go get this son of a bitch.”

*

“How are the repairs going?” asked Steve, as Rocket jumped from underneath the Benatar.

“Well, if Thor keeps it up with the extra power and lightning and whatnot, we should be able to head out in a few hours, Cap,” he replied, wiping oil from his tiny hands. He grabbed another tool—Steve had absolutely no idea what it was or did—and jumped back inside the engine room.

“Anything I can do to help?” he inquired. He knew he was no mechanic, but he hated being a bystander when ‘science’ and ‘technology’ happened.

Rocket looked at him warily. “Well, unless you know how to realign the core and fix the fuel cells, I don’t think so, Cap. Actually,” he continued, pushing Steve a little to reach another tool, you’re kind of in the way, so if you don’t mind…”

The Captain knew a dismissal when he heard one, and retreated slowly away from the ship, towards the compound. “Of course. Just let me know if you need anything from me. Gonna check on—” Tony, he wanted to say, but caught himself at the last minute, “—the others.”

“Yeah, you do that,” the raccoon added distractedly, his full attention already turned back towards the ship.

Steve walked unhurriedly towards the main room. The holographic display was still on, and the images of the ‘Vanished’, as they had started calling the people who turned to dust, and Planet 0259-S were still floating around. Once again, his eyes fell on Bucky’s face, and the familiar grief washed over him. He felt like he had spent most of the past ten years grieving for Bucky, in different ways and capacities. It still hurt, everytime more, it seemed, but it was also the kind of emotional pain that, oddly, felt like a friend.

He finally glanced at the window separating the room from the one where Tony was still sleeping. Now that he was there, he hesitated. He didn’t want to intrude, and it wasn’t like his last conversation with Tony had gone well, had it?

Just when he was about to turn back and leave, Pepper came out of the door, her arms crossed. 

She arched an eyebrow. “So are you gonna come in, Cap, or just moon over him from a distance, all forlorn and torn?”

He gaped in surprise. He hadn’t known she had seen him come in. “Pepper, I—”

She held up a hand, rubbing her forehead with the other. “Just—just come in, please, Steve. I could use the company.”

He nodded and followed her in. He glanced at her covetedly. She looked tired and worn out. She probably had come directly from a Stark Industries meeting, judging by her outfit. Pepper always seemed so collected, with her perfectly pressed suits and dresses, colour-coordinated with her nail polish, jewelry and shoes. He had always admired that of her, this meticulousness, this attention to details. It reminded him of Peggy, in a way. Even now, amidst the mess that was the world with half of its people missing, she looked as elegant and poised as ever, at least outwardly. He knew she was as much of a mess as everyone else inside, but she didn’t let it show. That was her armor; not a metal shell like Tony’s, or made of kevlar and vibranium like Steve’s suit and shield. She was a powerful woman, and she was in control; only a fool would mistake her femininity for vulnerability. She was the CEO of one of the biggest international companies, and she not only looked the part, but led it with an iron grip.

She barely ever let her guard down; she was a lot like Tony on that front. It made her showing her vulnerable side to Steve all the more significant.

Pepper gestured to another chair in a corner of the room, which Steve dragged next to hers. Only then did he look at Tony. 

Tony looked awful. It was like a punch in the gut. His face was too emaciated, his skin too pale, almost translucent, his body shrunk down to a shadow of the man Steve knew and—yes, the hell with it—loved. He had to fight the urge to reach for the other man’s hand, to cradle it in his and hold it close to his heart.

God, he had missed Tony. So much.

“How is he?” he asked softly.

Pepper huffed. “Well, for Tony, almost good. He’s sleeping, taking his meds, he has eaten a little and drunk water. That’s more than he usually does on a good day, when he is up and around.”

Steve laughed. “Yeah. He really is oblivious, isn’t he?”

She shook her head, a fond smile on her face. “It’s a wonder he made it to his late forties.”

Suddenly, he was brought back to Tony’s workshop, to the endless nights the man would spend there. He remembered the first time he had gone down there, almost shyly, bringing Tony leftovers of the dinner he had missed—again.

“Just put this down—uh, wherever you find space, I don’t care, I probably won’t eat it anyway,” had cut the man before Steve could open his mouth.

“Uh, okay,” he had replied, too taken aback to say anything. He had looked around warily, feeling awkward and clumsy, but his curiosity had instantly won over any qualms he’d had about invading Tony’s space. Every possible surface had been covered with papers, blueprints, trinkets and different metal parts, screws, tools, holographic interfaces overlapping the mess, mingling with it in a weirdly organic way. Before he’d been able to find somewhere to put the plate down, he’d been accosted by one of Tony’s robots who had tried, not so gently, to take it from his hands.

“Hey, careful with that, we don’t want to spill everything on the ground now, do we?” Steve had said, smiling at the eagerness of the robot. He had put a careful hand on the long mechanical arm, running his fingers along its length in wonder. It was a beautiful piece of engineering, and it was one of those things that would always awe Steve about this century; the incredible technological advances. Tony’s, in particular, were always quite spectacular.

“Hi, my name is Steve,” he had said to the machine. “What’s yours?”

The robot had seemed overjoyed at being the centre of someone’s attention and had started whirling and turning around. There had been something quite—happy, about the way it moved through the space. Though Steve had known, rationally, that this was just a mechanical device, with some programming and artificial intelligence, it’d felt so alive; it was hard to consider it a mere machine. If it had been able to, he was sure it would have bounced around like a puppy. Laughing, he had put the plate down and tried to calm the robot.

“His name is Dummy.” 

Steve had turned towards Tony, who had stopped what he had been doing to watch Steve interact with his robot, his face unreadable.

“He can hear you, but can’t talk, I haven’t programmed him with a vocal interface,” he’d continued, climbing down the stool he had been sitting on and walking towards where Steve and Dummy had been standing, wiping his hands with a dirty cloth.

Steve had nodded. The robot had stopped whirling around as soon as he’d heard Tony’s voice, moving eagerly towards him.

“Dummy?” he had repeated, arching an eyebrow in disapproval. “That’s not a very nice name, is it?”

Tony had shrugged offhandedly. “Well, I was young and not very nice when I made him, so I guess that reflects more on me than him.”

Steve had shaken his head, but hadn’t been able to repress a smile. “Hi Dummy. Nice to meet you,” he had greeted, bowing his head towards the robot.

Tony had wandered towards the plate he had brought. “Okay, Cap, listen, for the record, you can’t bring me leftover chinese food without the boxes and chopsticks, I know you spent a few decades in the ice and that you are not up to date with social niceties, but this is just unacceptable standards and—”

Steve had smiled at the seemingly unending stream of words coming from Tony’s mouth, who, though he’d kept protesting about Steve’s manners and the content of his plate, had started digging enthusiastically in the food in front of him.

After that, he’d made a point to bring food to Tony everytime he missed a meal, which happened almost everyday. He had ended up spending nearly as much time in the workshop as Tony, playing with Dummy and teaching him tricks, and drawing. He’d drawn a lot in those months. Art had remained one of the only constants in his life; for as long as he could remember, he had always loved drawing the things around him.

One day, Tony had sat next to him and watched him draw Dummy.

“You know, you could have been an artist, Cap. Or even an architect.”

Steve had arched an eyebrow. “I’ll keep that in mind if I’m ever planning a career change.”

“Oh, you could do like me, and be everything at once, engineer, superhero—”

“—genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist?” had finished Steve, his eyes dancing.

Tony had shrugged. “I don’t know about playboy anymore, but yep, that sums it up. You could go to architecture school. There are a few around the city, you know.”

He had snorted. “Yeah, because that will go down well with the other students, having Captain America in their classrooms.”

The other man had flayed his hands around in dismissal. “You could change your name and wear a disguise, you know, wearing glasses like Clark Kent, and whoops, suddenly everyone is fooled and no one recognises you!”

Steve had rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I don’t think real life works like comic books.”

Tony had gasped mockingly. “But darling, you literally  _ are _ a comic book character, surely that has to count for something.”

The Captain had sighed, his shoulders slumping. “Ugh, don’t remind me. I used to love comic books, as a kid. Never thought I’d make it in one.”

“Oh, certainly not just one, more like  _ hundreds _ .”

Steve had turned to look at Tony, then, who was looking at him back with a sardonic smile. Something had dropped in his stomach, as his eyes had started tracing the dark-haired man’s face, shoulders, hips. His gaze had gone up to the arc reactor, like it always did. He loved how the soft glow lightened up Tony’s features, softening the creases around his eyes and mouth. He had looked up and seen that the other man had been staring right back, the mirth of before replaced with something much more intense—and yet incredibly warm. 

Tony had been so beautiful in that moment that it had made Steve’s heart ache with a longing he never thought he’d feel again.

He had looked away quickly, running a hand through his hair to hide his inner turmoil.

“You really think I could have been an architect?” he’d asked, grasping at anything to distract him from staring at Tony’s lips and let his mind run wild with fantasies that would certainly never come to fruition.

“Well, you’re hopeless at mechanics, so you definitely could never be an engineer,” the man had replied, his light arrogant tone back, “but you do have an eye for perspective and technical drawing, so architect is the next acceptable, semi-respectable option.” 

The Captain had looked at Dummy, whirling around happily as he’d tried to water the plants Steve had brought down to the workshop, spilling most of the water on the floor in the process. “It was never an option, you know, back then. I was lucky enough to be able to finish high school, and take some art classes at a local college after that. I never dreamt of being able to attend university. It wasn’t for us working class folk, you know.” 

He had paused, suddenly brought back to the days he had spent in that small Brooklyn apartment, drawing to the light of a candle because the electricity bill had been so expensive. He had remembered Bucky, coming back from his late-night shift at the docks, slumping down on the small couch next to him. On those nights, he would always steal Steve’s drawing pad, who in turn would always pretend to protest vehemently. It had been a little routine of theirs. The brown-haired man would then tease Steve on his drawing subjects, criticizing this and that, but it had only ever been for the show; there had always been something soft in his eyes when he looked at Steve’s drawings. The blond knew that Bucky had loved his art, and that it’d made the taller man very happy that he’d been able to spend part of his days drawing instead of in a factory. Not that Steve’s health would have allowed him to work there anyway. He had been lucky enough to find a job at one of the quiet little shop below their apartment building, owned by an old couple that had all but adopted Steve, and by extension Bucky. His heart had squeezed as the nostalgia had washed over him.

He had smiled melancholically at Tony. “I think that, before the war, I’d hoped maybe to become a journalist, or work as an artist for a newspaper. But then—well, the war happened. There didn’t seem to be a point to think about the future after that.”

The dark-haired man looked at Steve wistfully, like he was considering a particularly interesting problem. After a while, he huffed, and looked away, his eyes unseeing. “Yeah. War would do that to you.”

They had remained in a companionable silence, and Steve had gone back to drawing. Eventually, they had both made their way out of the workshop to gather with the others. That had been one of the first times Steve had felt truly at ease with the other man. Only when they had reached the floor on which the Avengers lived had they looked at each other, something almost complicit between them, like a secret shared between them only, which no one else would ever know about.

Pepper’s hand on his arm brought him out of his thoughts. She was looking at him piercingly, like she could see through his soul. “How are you, Steve?”

The Captain snorted. “How do you think?”

She closed her eyes in exasperation. “Steve—”

He held up his hands, cutting her off. “It’s okay, Pepper. I don’t want to make this about me. It’s been about me enough.”

She bit her lower lip, as though wanting to say something, but not quite sure how to bring it up. She nodded and turned her attention back towards her husband. Her  _ husband _ , thought Steve. God, that was weird. He never thought Tony would be anyone’s husband, ever. Even when he and Pepper had been together that first time around… To be fair, he’d never perceived Pepper as the marrying kind either. So to learn that these two had tied the knot, it was—well, it had surprised Steve, for sure. He tried to convince himself he was happy for them. And he was, really. He was happy for them, to an extent; but it was tinged with a hint of bitterness and a heavy hand of regrets. 

Maybe if he repeated that he was happy for them enough times he would end up actually believing it.

“He still cares,” blurted Pepper. Steve looked up, surprise. “About you, I mean.”

He threw her a disbelieving look. “Does he?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. Don’t play this game. You know he does. You’re better than that.”

He rubbed a hand over his face, closing his eyes for a second. “I still care about him too. I care about him so much it’s suffocating me sometimes. And yet,” he laughed, but it was humourless, “when he acts this way, like earlier, when he’s just being so impossibly stubborn, a part of me just want to—”

“Strangle him?” she finished, a small smile tugging at her lips.

He shook his head, smiling back. “Or just shake him. Make him listen, make him understand, make him see reason.”

The blond woman huffed. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

“How do you do it?” he asked.

For a second, he thought she was not going to reply, and divert the conversation elsewhere, towards less treacherous waters. She tilted her head, looking at Steve almost wistfully.

“Me?” she started. “Oh, simple. I give him no other choice. Or I don’t listen to him in turn, and I do whatever I want or need to. You know you can’t make Tony do anything he doesn’t want to. But if you ignore him,” she lifted a finger, “or don’t try to convince him of doing anything… He probably will do it. He’s contradictory like that.”

Steve smiled, and this time, it was real. “How can he be so good at simultaneously driving me up the wall and make me want to hug him?”

Pepper shrugged. “It’s part of his charm.”

“Yeah,” he said simply.

They remained in silence for a little while. It was comfortable, surprisingly, be silent next to Pepper. There was no awkwardness there, only some kind of kinship, a kind of weird connection and empathy towards each other. Probably the byproduct of all these nights spent on the compound’s roof, holding each other through sorrow, grief, hope and pain.

“Steve?” she called softly. “Where do we go from here?”

His breath caught in his throat. He had been expecting that question since she had walked in the compound on the day after the snap and asked if they had heard from Tony. 

“What do you mean?” he replied, because he didn’t know how to handle this conversation. 

She gave him a meaningful look. “You know what I mean.”

Steve rubbed a hand over his face. God, she was way too clever for any of them. “I don’t know, Pepper. I don’t—I didn’t stop to think about the future. Up until yesterday, there seemed to be no future, at least not one—not one involving Tony,” he finished, his voice shaking slightly.

He closed his eyes. He wouldn’t cry, he could hold on a little longer. He could do this. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t.

He felt her delicate fingers on his cheek, brushing the tears away. “I know.”

He looked up at her beautiful face. He covered her hand with his, lacing their fingers together. “I know I’m in no position to demand anything from him. So I guess, I will go wherever he wants me to.”

Pepper shook her head, frowning. “You don’t have to. You also have your say in this.”

Steve sneered. “Do I? Really? After what I’ve done?”

She rolled her eyes again. “Of course you do. Will Tony follow you where you are headed, no matter where and what? Probably not. But you don’t have to follow Tony. You can let him know where you are, and wait for him to come to you.” 

Slowly, he lowered their joint hands to his lap. Her hand seemed ridiculously small in his large palm. He remembered having hands almost just like hers, before the serum. Sometimes, he thought he would never really get used to his body, and how strong and foreign it was compared to the one he had grown up in. 

He sighed. “That’s the thing, though; I don’t want to wait. I want to follow him. I messed up,” he admitted. “I was in an impossible situation, and I did what I thought was right. But I messed up, and I want to make it up to him.”

She tilted his chin up with her free hand. “Maybe the best way to do that is the opposite of what  _ you _ want. Give him some space. He’s probably expecting you to keep butting in. You both are so good at pushing each other’s buttons. Like, insanely good. But I don’t think pushing will work in this case.”

He held her gaze. There was nothing but honesty and eagerness in her eyes. No regret. No bitterness. No anger, at least, not superficially. He appreciated the way she didn’t beat around the bush, and told him the truth. It meant she trusted him, and he valued it immensely. 

“You’re right,” he exhaled. “Of course, you’re right.”

She smiled, quirking a derisive eyebrow. “I usually am.”

Pepper took Tony’s hand in hers.

“You and I—we know Tony,” she started. “Like others don’t. I think we are probably the only two people in the world who see Tony. Like, really see him. We know that Tony is not nearly as selfish and self-centered as the world thinks he is. He always puts other people first. At least, for the past ten years he has.”

The Captain nodded. “And god know he works hard on that cover.”

She shrugged. “Ever since the Avengers—he has spent most of his time in his workshop, developing tech suited for each of your skillsets, improving it, looking out for you in ways you have no idea about. No one knows about this side of Tony,” she continued, “because Tony would rather die than have people know he cares, that he cares so much he will do anything—anything—to make his friends, his family’s lives better.” 

Steve thought he couldn’t feel any worse than he already felt about what had gone down between him and Tony, during the Accords debacle. 

He had been wrong, apparently. Again. 

“He was coming to help me,” he whispered. “That time in Siberia. He was coming to help me.”

Pepper squeezed his hand. “I know, Steve. And I know that it makes it worse. Tony has big, very big trust issues. I don’t know if he ever told you about Obie and what went down after he was detained in Afghanistan. Or how he was brought up by his parents. Tony has a hard time trusting people, and you were one of the few on that list. One of the highest, probably just right after me and Rhodey.”

He dropped his head in his hand. “Fuck, I’m an idiot.”

“Language. And yes—yes, you are. But so is he. You are both idiots.”

Steve looked at her in disbelief. “Did you just say ‘Language’?”

“Did you just say fuck?” she retorted. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say it before, Steve.”

Steve laughed. “Everyone seems to forget I was in the army for years. Of course, I swear, but my ma taught me to be polite, and so I usually don’t out of respect for her memory. And well, let’s just say you can’t live with Nat for two years and not learn to swear in ten different languages.”

“Oh, believe me,” she jeered, “I know. She started as a PA for me and Tony, did she ever tell you that? That was her cover at least. Shame, she really was the best PA I had, all these years.”

That made Steve smile. Imagining Nat, spy, assassin, Avenger, be Tony’s personal assistant—sure, she was one hell of an expert at working under cover and adapting to any situation and she could lie her way out of anything. But be Tony’s assistant, that must have been one of hell of a mission. It was a wonder Tony was still alive, considering.

He sobered up as he remembered just why and how Nat was the accomplished spy that she was. She didn’t talk about the Red Room, ever—but Steve had read her file. He had been horrified when he’d read the reports SHIELD had made on the Russian ‘training’; it had scared him that such brainwashing could be imposed on children, to make weapons out of them. It made him want to hurt the people who could do such things, with a ferocity that surprised him. It was the same rage he had towards HYDRA. He’d always hated HYDRA, but ever since learning about the Winter Soldier Program, after witnessing how they had tortured and abused Bucky—there wouldn’t have been a place far enough in the universe for the perpetrators to hide from him, if they had still been alive.

He hated that he would never be able to get revenge for his oldest friend. He hated how much Bucky had lost and suffered because of them. 

His heart sank when he remembered that dreadful fight with Tony in Siberia. Shame overwhelmed him once again; he would never forgive himself for losing control, for letting his wrath and fear blind him and fight the man—the man who had given him his life back. His comrade in arms. His partner. His friend.

His friend he’d almost killed, because of the rage and the pain and the resentment he felt towards HYDRA, which he had turned towards Tony. Tony, who had been just as much in pain and enraged, and rightly so, because of his parents’ murder. Tony who had wanted the same revenge Steve wanted, only his outlet had had a face; Bucky’s. A revenge that Steve had denied him, that he had to deny to him—ironically, just like he’d been denied his.

Bile rose in this throat as he remembered flashes of the fight; like the way Tony’s repulsors had shot at him, drawing blood, bruising his body; the way he had used the shield to deflect them; the way Tony had attacked Bucky and almost killed him; the way Steve had wrecked the suit, the suit he loved and admired so dearly.

The way he had all but broken the arc reactor in two.

God, what a mess.

“Tony is never going to forgive me, is he?”

Pepper sighed, and looked at him, something almost like pity in her eyes. “Oh, Steve. Tony has already started forgiving you. No, I’m serious,” she insisted, at his look of disbelief. “He is still angry. He is still in pain. But he still cares. He cares way too much. Do you know what he has been doing ever since you sent him that letter?”

The Captain shrugged. “Besides throwing it in the nearest fire?”

She stared at him, her face unreadable. “You really think that that’s what he did with it?”

“How should I know? It’s not like he ever replied to it, is it?” he replied, a bit harsher than he meant to.

Pepper arched an eyebrow. “Did you really expect him to?”

Steve rubbed a hand on his tired face. “No. Not really. I mean, I hoped. But I knew he wouldn’t. That’s not Tony.”

“It’s not,” the blond woman said, and there was something guarded and definitive in her tone, something protective he hadn’t felt coming from her in a while.

He remembered that though they had a very amicable, surprisingly close friendship, she was still Tony’s wife.

“Can I ask you a question?” she asked, after a beat.

Steve nodded. “Of course. Anything.”

“Why did you send him a flip phone?”

He frowned. Wasn’t it obvious? “Well, so he could—”

“No, no, you misunderstand,” she cut in, “ _ why _ a  _ flip phone _ ?”

“Oh. Well. I don’t know. Nat told me—” He stopped abruptly, as Pepper had dropped his hand to put it over her mouth. “What? Are you—are you  _ laughing _ ?”

And it seemed that Pepper couldn’t help but burst into an irrepressible—bordering on hysterical—laughter. “Oh my god. Did—did Nat tell you to buy it?” she succeeded in asking amidst two fit of giggles.

Steve threw is arms up. “Yes! Why? What’s the matter?”

The blond woman wiped the tears from her eyes, quirking a mischievous smile. “Oh, it’s a little private joke of ours.”

Steve stood up and started pacing nervously. “She said that it was a burner phone, that it wouldn’t be traceable!”

He went to stand by the window overlooking the main room, still deserted. He could hear some voices, probably in the kitchen, but they were distant and muffled. He felt his cheek heat up and ran a hand through his hair to try to hide his embarrassment. Was everyone—even the people he trusted the most—just always trying to make a fool of himself with his knowledge, or lack thereof, of technological savviness? He thought he’d pick up a lot in the past ten years. For someone born before the first television, let alone the first computer, were invented, he really thought he wasn’t doing so bad. Visibly, there were still many things he simply didn’t get.

He felt Pepper’s hand on his shoulder. He turned minutely to look at her face; at least she had the decency to look apologetic. “Steve. I’m sorry. It’s just—That’s Tony we’re talking about. The man who made the first Iron Man suit in a cave in Afghanistan? Did you really think he didn’t have ways to make sure phone calls and such were untraceable?”

The Captain bit his lip. Of course, he had thought of it. But—well, it hadn’t been enough, had it? To write a letter, and nothing else? He needed to do something, something not too invasive. A phone had seemed like a good idea at the time.

He dropped his hand from his head. “Of course, but—I don’t know, I just thought that, well, it was a peace offering. I know Tony could’ve tracked me down and called me, even without the phone. But I thought that by giving it to him, it was like extending a hand, and waiting patiently,” he gestured vaguely, “maybe forever, until he reached back to shake it. It was an olive branch, a way of letting him know that I would always be just one phone call away, and that I was giving him, I don’t know, permission, or consent to call me. That I was basically giving him the power to decide if he ever wanted to interact with me again.”

Pepper snorted. “He hated that. Surely, you must know that he hated that.”

Steve closed his eyes. Yes. He had known. Of course, he had. He knew Tony, and he knew he hated being handled stuff—even stuff that was welcome. And the phone had, for sure,  _ not _ been welcome. At all. He knew deep down that it had been just another reminder of everything that had went wrong; a proof of Steve’s guilt made plastic and circuits. He’d all but sent his heart on a silver platter after having brutally ripped Tony’s. It was a poisoned gift, and Steve had known it. But it was something, at least. Better than nothing?

He shook his head.  “What else was I supposed to do? Go gently into that good night?”

The blond woman arched a pointed eyebrow. “You broke his heart, Steve.”

He crossed his arms on his chest. “And I messed up. Big time. And I regretted it almost immediately. In my book, when you make a mistake, you acknowledge it, you apologise and you do better next time. I knew it wouldn’t be easy or even possible, with Tony, but I had to try. Didn’t I?” he added, turning his head towards Pepper, who was looking at him piercingly.

“I’m sure you did,” she replied, and her tone was cold now. He couldn’t blame her, really; he probably would have been much more resentful and unforgiving than she had been with him so far, if the situation was reversed.

The silence that followed was strained, more tensed than it ever had been between them since the snap. He dropped his eyes to the floor, the bitterness and regret so thick in his throat he couldn’t speak.

Pepper put a soft hand on his forearm, making him glance up. “He hated your letter, Steve. He didn’t really let it show. But he despised it. Because it was so you. And he hated it.” She paused. “But you know what he would have hated more? Not receiving it.”

Steve felt his shoulders slump in—was it relief? Regret? Sadness? Probably a bit of all of them, he thought. 

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t?”

She huffed. “Pretty much.”

There was something that was still bothering Steve, though. “What did he do with it, then?”

She tilted her head, looking him up and down. “You really want to know?”

He shrugged. What did he have to lose? “I do.”

She sighed deeply, closing her eyes in exhaustion. “He’s been carrying them around with him. Wherever he goes. The letter  _ and  _ the phone.”

Steve gaped at her.  _ Wait, what?  _

Too stunned, all he could think of replying was, “Why?”

She shook her head, something sad and wistful in her eyes. “I don’t think it’s my place to answer this.”

Hesitatingly, Steve reached out towards the blond woman. She took his hand in hers, letting herself be drawn into a tight hug. He could feel her soft breath on his collarbone. Steve didn’t know how long they remained like that, embraced and unmoving, but when he finally let her go, he noticed that the sun was setting down.

He smiled at her, squeezing her hand. “Thank you, Pepper. Truly.”

“Oh, that doesn’t mean I’m not mad, so mad at you for what you did to Tony,” she replied, her tone commanding and sharp—but her eyes were warm when he looked up to meet hers.

“Wouldn’t expect anything else,” he replied softly.

She let go of his hand to put her hands on her hips. Instantly, he was in front of the ruthless CEO and fierce businesswoman. “Steve, I swear to god, if you ever pull something like this again, I will end you. And I don’t mean just in a physical way,” she added, her eyes narrow and steely.

He nodded curtly. “I know. But thank you anyway,” he added, as she made to turn back towards the bed.

She took a step back towards him, cupping his face with one of her hands, a look between exasperation and fondness in her eyes. “You’re welcome, Cap.”


End file.
